David Miliband: Soap Opera Between Me And Brother Ed Is Over

David Miliband has promised the "soap opera" between him and his brother Ed will not return, as he spoke out about how to tackle youth unemployment.

The elder Miliband brother, who left frontline politics when Ed beat him to become Labour leader in September 2010, said on Monday morning he would stay on the backbenches:

"I think I was right to say 'Look, I've lost the leadership election'", he said.

“I promise you the soap opera is not back and it’s certainly not back for daily episodes with me in the frontline politics. I think that the really important thing is that the country sees that the Labour party is renewing itself, which it is under Ed’s leadership; that’s it’s able to have real discussion about the future of the country; and that it addresses these big issues because an issue like youth unemployment is a sort of thing that brings all the of us into politics in the first place."

He defended his brother's leadership, saying he had been "elected to fight the next election" and there was not going to be a new leadership contest.

"I think he’s going to fight the next election with real courage and conviction and I think it’s up to all of us to make sure he wins the next election and serves as prime minister.”

Miliband, who will launch an ACEVO report on youth unemployment later today said he would suggest young people in work should mentor their unemployed peers.

“We’ve said, we’re going to say today, that any young person in work for over a year should mentor a young person that is out of work for over a year because this problem is really chronic now: we’ve got one and a half million people who are unemployed, 250,000 of them unemployed for over a year and a further 200,000 unemployed for over six months and this is something that we can tackle," he told BBC News on Monday morning.